HOW INSTAGRAM LEFT ME UNABLE TO FUNCTION

SABRINA Greenberg, a 31-year-old app developer from London, turned to Instagram for exercise inspiration. Sabrina – who’s ‘never been more than a size 10’ – says: ‘My new Instagram friends said I must go refined sugar, grain and dairy-free, while doing three intense exercise sessions each week at the gym

‘Within two months, I became obsessed. At work, I’d scour images of “healthy” food and check my Instagram comments at least 15 times a day.’

Six months later, she was surviving on raw vegetable soup and had shed almost two stone, leaving her dizzy, weak and ‘unable to function’. She tells me: ‘It was incredibly competitive. If you could cut out the most from your diet, you’d get appreciation in comments, which made me feel good but kept me very ill.’

Not only was Sabrina’s Instagram habit bad for her health, there were financial implications, too.

‘I was spending £100 a week on meal-replacement powders, protein powders, matcha tea supplements – whatever I thought would make me “well”.’ After Sabrina’s mother intervened, she deleted Instagram. But despite regaining the weight she lost and engaging in counselling sessions, her relationship with food remains tainted.

‘I’m still not eating in the way I used to. I’ve forgotten how,’ she says. ‘But I now know who my real friends are.’